Someone who hadn’t stared into death’s abyss and been yanked back from the brink, again and again, by the mate who refuses to let her fall.
“Sariah,” says a man across the table. His name is Varian, I think, and he leans his elbows on the wood, his eyes dancing. “So will you stay, then? When you finish the maze?”
I swallow the tender bite of meat I’m savoring and set down my fork. I don’t know that Icanfinish the labyrinth, at this point—using my gyre will only return me to where I left off, a scant foot above a lake of bubbling acid.
But I’ve outwitted the maze before. Maybe I can do it again, given enough time to think.
“I don’t know,” I venture. Words well up, as honest as they are raw. “I guess I won’t know unless…” I swallow again. “…UntilI face those doors at the end.”
“Oh, come on.” A baritone voice to my right, and I glance over to find Calen regarding me with a smile. He sits on the other side of Ravenna, his arm slung around her shoulders. She leans into him, her fingertips dancing along the inside of his thigh.
“There must besomethingthat has the power to keep you in Velindra.” He winks. “Something you’d miss if you left.”
“Well…” I hesitate. “There’s one thing, actually. Something I’m not sure I can live without.”
“Oh?” he prompts, a laugh in his voice. “And what’s that?”
I buy myself time by taking a bite of roasted potato. Rosemary and butter swirl across my tongue, but even the delectable flavors can’t keep me from stealing a glance at Amriel. His expression turns smug, knowledge glittering in his eyes.
“I’ll miss…” I force the words from a too-tight throat. “…My bathtub.”
The table erupts into laughter. Amriel’s eyes slit, which somehow pulls a shiver from my bones. It’s a promise, that look. Maybe even a threat. One that makes the muscles in my belly coil tight.
Thankfully, Ravenna interjects, breaking Amriel’s hold on me.
“I’ve been so worried about you,” she says. “All day, I wonder where you are, what you’re doing, if you’re okay…”
The conversation moves on. The fae finish their food and push their platters aside. Someone arrives to clear the dishes from the table.
I can hardly stand to let mine go. I lick my fork clean, then my knife, and finally relinquish everything with reluctance, despite having eaten my fill. I’ve enjoyed this meal more than any in my life, but still, an ever-widening ache throbs in my belly, one I can’t seem to reach, much less satisfy.
I flick another glance at Amriel, who rakes his gaze over me in a smoldering perusal.
Good goddess. It’s like I’m drowning in plain sight. Being sucked into the undertow of those relentless yellow eyes.
Ravenna chatters on, but the atmosphere around the table slowly shifts. Calen’s fingers drift down around her shoulder, slipping beneath the scrap of silk that covers her breast, his fingers rolling around her nipple.
Just like that. As casual as can be.
She trails off, aiming a light slap against the inside of her mate’s thigh. But I can tell she doesn’t really mean it, because her eyes have gone glassy. Something simmers in their depths, something uncomfortably familiar.
“We can go back to our room for dessert,” she says breathily, “if you want. I’m sure you’ve had a long day, and don’t need?—”
“It’s fine,” I say, surprised at how easily the wordscome. “I mean, I’m inyourdining room. If I have a problem, I should be the one to leave.”
She does a slow blink, her expression slackening. Whether because of my answer, or the fact that Calen’s other hand has found its way under her dress to trace slow circles between her legs, who can say.
She leans back, pressing herself into him, a sound of pleasure leaving her lips. Her gaze catches mine and holds there, as ifinvitingme to watch. As if to say,would you like to see what you’re missing?
All around, the other fae follow suit. Some climb into each other’s laps, others onto the table. Mouths find mouths. Hands slip between silk and skin.
Calen and Ravenna get more entangled, yet my gaze inevitably finds Amriel’s. Again.
What’s happening here should shock me. Scandalize me. It should register as sin.
Yet something wakens in my depths as Calen tugs his mate to her feet and spins her to face the table, pushes her down. As he tugs her dress up around her hips and leans down to lay a kiss against her shoulder. As his hand slips between her legs from behind.
Amriel’s tongue runs along his bottom lip. My eyes follow the movement, drink it in as greedily as I swallowed that water, but I don’t stop there. My attention slips over his mouth, his neck, the hollow of his throat, the vee of bare skin that leads downward and disappears beneath the table.
